


thirty-five minutes

by redstorms



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Haircuts, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, On the ring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:02:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25322098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redstorms/pseuds/redstorms
Summary: three snapshots of Bellamy and Murphy in the first three years on the Ring
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/John Murphy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	thirty-five minutes

On the Ring, sometimes Bellamy meets him in the common room, chairs pulled aside so that there’s space. It’s nights like these where they don’t talk. The only light comes from the next room over; through the window of the main deck. Bellamy brings the sword that Echo fashioned for him out of a pipe. His feet are spread wide and most of his weight is leaning into his right leg. Murphy rises to the occasion; standing in a similar way but mirrored, leaning left.

They had begun sparring sessions like these, and each one started just like this. They stood across from each other and stared until one made the first move. Usually, it was Murphy who moved first, impatient, but occasionally it was Bellamy, and on this particular night, it was indeed Bellamy.

The movement cuts through the still silence, and Bellamy dashes forward, spins, slashing towards Murphy, who drops down onto his left knee and rolls on the ground to wind up behind Bellamy, where he strikes. And misses, because Bellamy was then out of reach, because they know each other. Because when Bellamy lunges forward, Murphy was ready to lean back; when Murphy strikes towards Bellamy, Bellamy was ready to counter.

Bellamy’s grunts and quick breaths are close to his ear, and then gone. Highlights from the main deck’s lights fall across the side of Bellamy’s face, shining in his dark eyes, and then they were shadows again. Murphy eventually wasn’t sure if he and Bellamy were trying to attack each other, or were simply following each other’s movements. They move, back and forth, push and pull, until Murphy missteps in a dodge and Bellamy ducks, taking Murphy’s knees out from beneath him.

Murphy’s back hits the ground and the breath exits from his lungs. Bellamy’s knee presses into his chest — not hard, just enough to hold him down — and pushes the tip of the blade to the underside of Murphy’s chin.

Around them, the ship is still, and above him, Murphy can hear Bellamy’s labored breathing that matches his own.

“Thirty-five minutes,” Bellamy breathes, and Murphy closes his eyes, breathes his own breath, and tilts his head back.

-.-

Only when he found Bellamy with his arms folded on the desk and his cheek cradled atop them did Murphy realize that, in the entire time that on the Ring, he has never once seen Bellamy Blake asleep. Now, he sees Bellamy in front of him, asleep at his own desk, in the flickering light of the warm florescence that they use here in the common rooms, where Bellamy sits and works on — whatever he works on. Murphy pushes his weight away from the door and approaches, tilts his head a little in curiosity. The lines across Bellamy’s forehead have faded — not disappeared, just faded — and the sharp line of Bellamy’s mouth has loosened. Murphy can hear slow, deep breaths through Bellamy’s dry lips.

Bellamy, asleep, quiet and still, after another day of nothing and everything, here on the Ring.

Murphy reaches out slowly and touches Bellamy’s cheekbone with his fingertips. Bellamy’s skin is warm beneath his fingers as slides them up into Bellamy’s hair until he holds Bellamy’s jaw in his hand. He hears Bellamy’s deep breathing quiet and watches as Bellamy slowly opens his eyes. Bellamy blinks slowly before he looks up at Murphy, his eyes dark — either from exhaustion or in the strange light of the common room, Murphy can’t tell.

Murphy holds Bellamy’s jaw and Bellamy lets him.

Until Bellamy reaches up slowly, slips his fingers beneath Murphy’s, and carefully pulls Murphy’s hand away. He then curls his thumb over Murphy’s fingers, clutching them loosely, and he guides them to his lips. Murphy exhales slowly as he feels Bellamy’s hot breath against his fingers, then Bellamy’s lips over his knuckles.

Bellamy kisses each of Murphy’s knuckles once before he closes his eyes again, places Murphy’s hand back on his jaw, and lets go. Within moments, Bellamy’s deep breathing returned. Murphy’s throat feels tight as he leans in and kisses Bellamy’s head, a return.

With his lips in Bellamy’s hair, Murphy catches sight of the writing pad underneath Bellamy: a letter to Clarke’s mother, apologizing for her death.

-.-

Bellamy, a towel slung over one shoulder and a pair of scissors in one hand, pulls the chair from his desk and into the center of the common room. Murphy sits on it and tilts his head forward as Bellamy drapes the towel around his neck. He straightens again and Bellamy’s fingers curl in his hair, gently slide across his scalp, and pull back the bangs from his forehead. Murphy closes his eyes, feels his bangs slowly fall back towards his face.

“Your hair’s gotten long again,” Bellamy murmurs and again runs his hand through Murphy’s hair.

“That’s why you’re going to cut it,” Murphy says in return, a confirmation, his toes curling against the metal floor.

Murphy keeps his eyes closed as Bellamy closes his index and middle fingers around a portion of Murphy’s hair, straightens it away from his head, and cuts, the scissors hissing quietly. Over and over again, Bellamy’s fingers push and pull through Murphy’s hair gently, stroke against his part, and Murphy feels himself slumping comfortably.

Then Bellamy takes Murphy’s jaw in his hand and forces Murphy’s head sideways. Murphy opens his eyes and looks up at Bellamy darkly, his heart beginning to pound harder in his chest. Bellamy regards Murphy briefly, his eyes just as dark, before he focuses again on Murphy’s hair. Murphy stares, nearly turns his head back just to feel Bellamy’s grip on his jaw again. A few minutes later, Bellamy does it again anyway, forcing Murphy’s head to turn to the other side. This time, when Bellamy lets go, his fingertips fall and brush down the side of Murphy’s neck and Murphy grits his teeth. He continues to stare up at Bellamy, who doesn’t look directly at him again. He doesn’t realize that he is clutching the arms of the chair tightly until he slowly lets them go.

Bellamy is soon gone from his sight, but still there, still very much there. There as hands in his hair, there as the quiet, lingering presence behind him, there as the knots in Murphy’s stomach, the stomp of his heart, the tension in his toes. Bellamy only exists as something tangible in the brief moments when their skin touches, and Murphy realizes then just how much of a shadow Bellamy has become in his life. Bellamy is usually lingering words, the aftermath of a moment’s worth of touches, the memory of the clearest eyes Murphy had ever seen.

Murphy tenses as Bellamy’s knuckles brush against his ear. Brushed: there, then gone, quickly as they had come, and Bellamy was then the memory of contact again. Bellamy’s hand ruffles through Murphy’s hair, shaking the loose hairs away from Murphy’s scalp, and then Bellamy was the tangles through Murphy’s hair. Bellamty wipes the scissors on the towel around Murphy’s shoulders, and then Bellamy was the lingering crinkles in the cloth. Bellamy had never existed as Bellamy, never for more than a minute. Always in the echoes, the repetitions.

“There,” Bellamy murmurs and moves back in front of Murphy. He reaches back and sets the scissors down on the desk. Murphy looks up at his captain from beneath his lashes, his eyes dark, and Bellamy pushes his fingers back through Murphy’s hair again. “Finished.”

Bellamy’s hand leaves Murphy’s scalp, but Murphy catches Bellamy’s wrist before it can pull away entirely. He holds onto Bellamy’s wrist tight, thumb pushing up against the steady pulse of it. Bellamy catches Murphy’s gaze and stares at him, his brown eyes dark like before, and his fingers stay tense, but he makes no move to pull away. Slowly, Bellamy’s pulse speeds up and Murphy’s follows. Murphy holds Bellamy’s wrist tightly and Bellamy is Bellamy, with his thick wrist and warm skin and beating heart and dark eyes and his tongue that slips out against his dry lips. Bellamy is Bellamy, there, in front of Murphy. Bellamy, close, close and warm. Bellamy reaches forward with his free hand and strokes a slow, lingering line down Murphy’s neck. His eyes darken as Murphy slowly tilts his head back, exposing his throat.

_"Fuck,_ ” Bellamy breathes, so quietly that Murphy nearly misses it, and pushes his index fingertip against Murphy’s pulse. Murphy exhales slowly through his lips and keeps his eyes on Bellamy as he slowly loosens his hold on Bellamy’s wrist. His fingertips linger across Bellamy’s skin before Bellamy slowly pulls away, and exists only as the fire that has ignited beneath Murphy’s skin and the strands of hair that lay across the floor.

Murphy sweeps them up later with ashes in his veins.

**Author's Note:**

> I run a twitter account called @t100ficrecs! I’ve interviewed a lot of fic writers recently, and there’s a reoccurring theme of talking about the push/pull relationship of Bellamy and Murphy, and here we are I guess! 
> 
> Please let me know if you liked it, that's how I get better! Thank you for reading!
> 
> also, Bellamy says "thirty-five minutes" at the end of the first scene because that's how long it took for Murphy to take him down.


End file.
